


Say That You Won't, Pray That You Don't

by clotpolesonly



Series: LHAW Prompted Mod Ficlets [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Laura is a ghost, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 13:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12300120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: Derek sees Laura sometimes. He catches fleeting glimpses of her in crowds, or in shop windows as he walks past. Just for a split second usually. When he’s in an especially bad place, he’ll swear he sees her, standing right in front of him with her hand outstretched. She’s never there when he looks again.





	Say That You Won't, Pray That You Don't

**Author's Note:**

> this one's fucking sad, y'all. It was actually one of the prompts sent in to the LHAW blog for a ficlet, but i didn't get it written before the event started so i figured i might as well use it as my entry for day 7's dealer's choice prompt. i blame the anon prompter for my tears.
> 
> (ps. the title is from the song Don't Forget Me from the tv show Smash, "say that you won't, i pray that you don't forget me." it seemed fitting.)
> 
>  
> 
> _anon prompt:  "Please just let me forget" and "I'm afraid you're going to replace me". They don't have to be in the same prompt fill tho. Thank you!!!_

Derek sees Laura sometimes. He catches fleeting glimpses of her in crowds, or in shop windows as he walks past. Just for a split second usually. When he’s in an especially bad place, he’ll swear he sees her, standing right in front of him with her hand outstretched. She’s never there when he looks again.

The first time he hears her, he brushes it off. It’s not like it’s the first time he’s thought he heard someone calling his name when they really hadn’t. It was probably someone half a mile away talking to someone else entirely. It’s hard to tell voices apart from that sort of distance anyway. It wasn’t Laura’s voice, no matter how much he may have wanted it to be. She was gone.

He told himself that over and over again, every time he could swear he caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye, every time he thinks he hears her voice on the wind. She’s gone. She’s dead. She isn’t there. She  _can’t_ be there.

It gets harder to convince himself of that when the vision he has of her looks back at him for a second too long to ignore. When he starts hearing more than just his name from her.

He ignores it. It’s not real, he reminds himself again and again, clenching his fists until his claws cut into his palms. It’s just an overactive imagination combined with grief. He misses her so much that he’s conjuring her up to keep himself from being alone. It’s pathetic, but he would never claim to be anything else at this point. Not after losing her, and his betas so soon after.

The loft is big and empty and already full of painful memories, so it makes some sense there for him to feel so...

He shies away from the word “haunted,” even in his thoughts. It’s starting to feel all too plausible.

The feeling follows him, more and more frequent as the months pass. He manages to pull himself back onto his feet, builds a stronger relationship with Scott and Stiles, reconnects with Isaac a bit. He’s starting to feel like a human being again, like a functional person who maybe has a handle on himself.

So why is he still seeing her?

He can’t seem to make her go away these days. Everywhere he turns, she’s there, the specter of her more solid and present and long-lasting by the day, her voice a constant drone in the back of his mind like a running commentary of his day. The longer it goes on, the more convinced he is that he’s losing his mind, but no amount of coping mechanisms or rationalizations make any difference.

Why is this happening? He was imagining her, wasn’t he? But that was before, when he was at his lowest. Now he’s not alone anymore or desperate for anything he can cling to to keep himself moving forward every day instead of ending it all then and there. Whatever purpose this sick delusion once served, it’s over now. It should be over.

And yet here Laura is, hovering at the edge of his peripheral vision, looking for all the world like she’s just lounging on his couch. She’s talking, sounding exactly like Laura always sounded except distant, a tiny bit echoey, like she’s speaking from inside a tunnel.

“Really, Der,” she’s saying. “More frozen pizzas? You know better than to eat that trash. It doesn’t even taste good. What happened to all those dishes you learned to make back in New York? You’re such a good cook! Ooh, you should make that linguini dish you made for my birthday year before last. What I wouldn’t  _give_  for some more of that—”

“Stop it.”

The words come out choked, forcing their way through his tight throat and past his clenched teeth before he could hold them back. His claws dig into the wood of his only table, the one he lets Stiles pin maps to or cover with innumerable books when there’s some crisis to be handled. Now it’s just supporting Derek’s weight, since his legs don’t seem up to the task anymore. The back of his neck prickles like there are eyes on him, but he can’t bring himself to turn around and look.

It’s the first time he’s acknowledged her.

She’s stopped talking and for a brief, dizzying moment Derek thinks that was the end of it, that she’s disappeared for good. That he really has been imagining it all along and he’ll turn to find nothing but empty air and mocking silence. Then she laughs.

“Stop what, silly?” she asks, light and unconcerned.

“ _Stop it_ ,” Derek repeats, harsh. The wood under his hands creaks. “Just  _stop._ ”

“Is that really any way to talk to your big sister?” she teases him.

He growls, the sound echoing around him in the empty space.

“You’re not,” he says. “You’re not her. You can’t be.”

A cold wind brushes past him. There’s no sound of movement, but he’s certain that if he were to look, he would see her standing now, maybe coming his way. He doesn’t turn.

“Of course I am, Derek,” she says. “I’m right here.”

"No. I don’t know what you are, but the real Laura is gone.”

His voice cracks, but he pushes the words out anyway. They need to be said. He’ll say them as much as he needs to, he can handle that now. At least, as long as he doesn’t have to look into her eyes when he says it. He keeps his own shut.

“I’m not gone,” the specter insists, her voice closer now and,  _god_ , it really does sound just like her. “I’m right here. It’s me, Der. It’s Laura.”

Derek shakes his head, a monumental effort with how hard it’s proving just to stay upright. “The real Laura wouldn’t do this to me,” he says.

“Do what?”

"All of this!” Derek shouts. The chill is right behind him now, brushing across his shoulder, and he cringes away from the feeling, refusing to turn. “Following me around. Making fucking small talk about dinner. Acting like you’re still... Like she’s still here when she’s not. The real Laura wouldn’t do that to me. It’s  _cruel._ ”

“I couldn’t just leave you alone, could I?” she says. “You’re my brother. My pack. I swore that I would protect you and be there for you, always. I know it took me a while to make it back to you completely, but I’m here now. It’s the two of us together like we’ve always been.”

Derek’s eyes sting. He tries to blink the feeling away, but it's stubborn and refuses to budge. Hearing her voice like this, hearing his sister and alpha tell him that she's  _there_  for him. How many times had Laura said that to him? How many times had he clung to her at night while she petted his hair and said exactly that to ward off the nightmares?

“Please,” he says in a cracked whisper.

“What do you need, Der?” Laura asks. “Tell me what you need and I’ll do it. You know I would do anything for you.”

“Please just let me forget.”

He hears a sharp intake of breath. It slices through him and he looks up almost against his will, still too attuned to the sound of his sister’s pain to ignore it even after all this time. His eyes find the wall of windows, black against the night sky. There’s a reflection there, pale and distorted but unmistakable. It doesn’t waver or disappear like it used to.

“Forget?” Laura repeats weakly. “I—I don’t want you to forget me.”

“I have to.” It hurts Derek to say it. It feels like shards of glass in his throat, and also like poison leached from a festering wound. “I  _need_  to, Laura. I need to move on with my life. How am I supposed to do that if you’re always pulling me back?”

“But I’m  _here,_ ” Laura says again, more urgent, like she’s trying to make him understand. In the reflection, Derek sees her step closer, reaching out like she’s going to touch him. “You don’t need to move on if you didn’t really lose me, do you? I’m not going anywhere, Der. I came back for you. I’m here for you.”

There’s something in her words, in the false-bright tone and the way she pushes. Something that gives him pause. Derek swallows hard, ignoring the cold sweat on the back of his neck, and turns around.

She’s there. A bit fuzzy around the edges. A little washed out, like she’s a pair of jeans that’s been run through the washing machines too many times. But she’s solid and steady and staring at him with wide, wet eyes the exact same shade as his own. He knows those eyes. There’s no mistaking them. And he knows the emotion behind them too.

“You didn’t come back for me,” he says. “You did it for you.”

She shakes her head. “What do you mean? Of course I did.”

“No,” Derek says. “You did it for you. Because you’re afraid.”

“Derek—” she starts, hesitant in that way she always was when she wasn’t being entirely honest.

“You didn’t want to die,” Derek cuts across her. “You still don’t. You don’t want to...to cross over, or go into the light, or whatever the hell it is. So what is it, Laura? Fear of the unknown? Of finding out what comes next? What are you so afraid of that you can’t let go?”

For a moment, Laura’s mouth opens and closes without any sounds coming out. He thinks there might be tears on her cheeks, but it’s hard to tell. It’s like she’s just a tiny bit out of focus, the details of her blurred ever so slightly. Suddenly, she smiles, watery and unconvincing.

“I’m afraid you’re going to replace me,” she says. “Forget me. That I’ll...move on, and you’ll find someone new to lean on, and I’ll just disappear completely and it’ll be like I never even existed.”

“Laura,” Derek croaks, losing the battle against his own tears.

“I don’t want you to be alone,” Laura hurries to say. “It’s not that I don’t want you to have people who care about you if they aren’t me. But—”

“I could never forget you, Laur.”

She just looks at him, long and steady and sad. “You just said you wanted to.”

Derek shakes his head, wishing not for the first time that he was better with words. “That’s not— I just— ” He drags his hands across his face, wiping away the wetness there as best he can.

“I can’t have you here when you’re not,” he says finally. “I don’t  _have_  you because you’re gone, but I can’t  _remember_  you if you’re still here.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, little bro,” Laura says on a weak laugh.

“Doesn’t it?”

The smile on Laura’s face falters. For the first time since it all began, Derek takes a step toward her. Then another, and another, until he’s right in front of her, close enough that he could reach out and touch if he weren’t so afraid of finding nothing there.

“Laura, I love you more than anything,” he says, aching with how true it is. “Still and always. No matter how long you’ve been gone or who else comes into my life, that’s never going to change.”

“I love you too,” Laura says.

“If you love me,” Derek tells her, trying to sound firm, to force the tremor out of his voice, “then you’ll go. For both our sakes.”

“Der,” she says, one last halfhearted appeal.

“You’re an open wound for me, Laura,” Derek says. “And besides. Don’t you think the others have waited long enough to have you back with them?”

Something like hope made its way onto her face then, something wistful and fond.

“You think they’ll be there?” she asks.

Derek’s smile is brittle, bittersweet. “I’m sure they will be. And Laura—”

His hand comes up, moving to brush a strand of hair out of her face. It obeys the gesture, but he doesn’t feel the contact. Not even when he traces his knuckles down her cheek. She closes her eyes and leans into it anyway, so maybe she can feel it even if he can’t. That’s something, at least.

He lets his hand fall and says, “We never forgot them, did we? No matter how long ago it was, they were always with us. How could you think you would be any different?”

Laura ducks her head. She sniffs against her own tears, but when she raises her head she’s smiling again.

“When did you get so grown up and wise anyway?” she asks, almost teasing again. She doesn’t wait for an answer though. Instead, she throws her arms around Derek in a hug.

He almost thinks he can feel it. He’s been hugged by her so many times in his life, he knows exactly how it would feel. The weight of her in his arms, her heat, the scent of her hair where he buries his nose in it. The mere memory of it is almost tangible enough to convince him that it’s not an illusion, and he clings to that for as long as he can.

“I love you, baby brother,” she whispers. “I’ll tell the others you said hello. Don’t join us too soon, okay?”

There’s a chill in the air, sending a shiver through him.

When he opens his eyes, he’s alone.


End file.
